Welcome to L.A. Weekly's Movie Guide, your look at the hottest films in Los Angeles theaters this week ? from indie art house gems and classics to popcorn-perfect blockbusters and new movies garnering buzz. Check here every week before you make your big screen plans.

Limited/art-house

Friday, May 17

We Have Always Lived in the Castle was crying out to be made. Shirley Jackson's neo-gothic 1962 novel about a trio of shut-ins?sisters Merricat and Constance and their uncle Julian?slowly going mad in their sequestered house is considered by many to be the author's masterpiece. The difficulties of adapting a largely psychological chamber piece to the screen are considerable, but Stacie Passon hits some grace notes in this pastel-colored confection starring Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, and the reliably creepy Crispin Glover. This modest production is comfortably at home on the screen; it will play in theaters and on VOD simultaneously. Monica Film Center, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica, Fri., May 17, various showtimes; $9-$12. (310)-478-3836, laemmle.com.

Also opening Friday, May 17: A Dog's Journey, A Violent Separation, All Creatures Here Below, Anaiara, Ask for Jane, John Wick: Chapter 3-Parabellum, The Meanest Man in Texas, Perfect, Photograph, The Professor, The Souvenir, The Sun is Also a Star, The Tomorrow Man, Trial By Fire, The Unseen